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civiy supporting forces personnel

Old-Salt

I am new to this site, and had made a post yesterday on the training Forum about packing a Bergen for a hiking session I have planned for a few weeks time, though I got some good adice there were also some snide comments about being a wannabe rambo coming on to your site. I am NOTHING of the sort, I have in the past fired an SLR rifle on a range under controled conditions, and believe me that is as close i want to get a high powered rifle. I am interested in the endurance and survival training you recieve. and reading the recent articles and watching the news about the romps across the falklands carrying inxecess of 100lb packs and covering hughe distances in very short periods of time I have MASSIVE respect for the work you do.

before joing the site I decided to air my reviews to some MP's including Patrick Mercer and Adam Ingram. and below is a copy of what I wrote.

BTW conbat stress and BFF are just two of the armed forces charities I support

Dear Sir

I feel that I must write to you with my concerns regarding our armed forces, especially relating to the Royal Navy. With the recent news relating to the run up to the 25th anniversary to the Falkands conflict.

I thought I would look at the strength of our navy as it stands today. Looking at the Royal navys own website it would seem we have ample ships from carriers down to mine sweepers and support vessels to conduct such an operation. However hearing reports in the press about ships being mothballed and downgraded, not being able to put to sea due to the lack of money for fuel Im not so sure and am rather concerned.

I feel as a country we should be very proud of our armed forces, especially in todays climate where we have service personnel in harms way and regrettably giving their lives. As a tax payer over the last 15 years and having voted in the last election I did not vote for our forces to be cut back to save money for the sack of saving money.

By supporting our armed forces publicly both as a country and personally, I dont feel we should be seen as war mongers or colonialists. A very strong navy can be used for a multitude of rolls and fighting wars is only a very small and thankfully very infrequent part.

I feel as a country we need to decide what sort of forces do we want, we can either have a defence force just to defend this country in the event of an attack such as Germany and Japan and not getting involved in issues around the world (this would cost a lot less) or we have a armed forces that we are greatly proud of, and that are correctly equipped to do the job we ask of them around the world, and as politicians once you have decided to commit the armed forces then we should get behind them 100%

I would be prepared to see a small increase in my taxes if I knew that the money was going to equip the armed forces with what ever equipment they needed to do the job (and lets forget about a costly and unworkable European defence force, it will cost far to much and will never work) The money can be much better spent like the £600 million the MOD has recently been able to spend on practical equipment to protect the soldiers on the ground.

Though I have not had the opportunity to serve myself due to medical reasons I support the armed forces whole heartedly and have massive respect for the work they do. I feel it a great shame that there are today very few MPs that understand the armed forces and feel that like education and the NHS they can be used for political games.

A prime example of cost cutting and insufficient care is the case of closing specialist hospitals and placing personnel in NHS hospitals where the general public have open access to them. I personally support a number of armed forces charities and feel that there should be not only specialist wings in hospitals but also more support for soldiers once they have left the service.

LE

As Fugly says you will meet lots of people who dont trust you as they think your a scummy media bod trying to gain information and print sh*t. My advice to you is dont come on asking too many questions or try to bait people and you then will be accepted.

If you are as you say then welcome to the site.

if you a scum sucking tw*t of journalist / walt wanting to write crap stories against the military I hope you get Aids and die.

GCM

... sure you've got that right - all the reports I have read suggest that one contracts AIDS, although why anyone would want to is beyond me - I suppose that soon anyone will be able to get it on Hire Purchase - in order that chav scum can benefit from it!

War Hero

Hang on your onto a winner there. Never mind the poor chav scum having to get nasty HP, we could put it in their benefits, you know make them entitled to it! Those that earn a crust wouldn't be entitled to it if you know what I mean.

War Hero

LE

Don't worry about the abuse, it goes with the territory. As this is a military-based site, a lot of Arrsers are sceptical by nature and - being squaddies - also naturally abusive!

As a self-declared civilian, some Arrsers are duty bound to give you random abuse - again, all part and parcel. Things may go bad if you happen to be a student though
As long as you aren't a walt, and can both send/recieve abuse, you'll get on fine!

ADC

I have been successful within a range of job functions within the company, including: Checkouts; the Cigarette kiosk/ Lottery machine (where I regularly dealt with large sums of money); the Photo Processing Machine: Customer Service desk; and the Petrol service station.

Oct 97 - June 98 PMS INTERNATIONAL PLC

Working under the part stores manager to assist in establishing a new department for a large toy import/export company. This involved considerable effort in determining how the department was laid out and presented to the end-client, and working with the stock control systems for monitoring the movement of merchandise throughout the business.

Sept 97  Oct 97 G.K.M ENGINEERING LIMITED

Milling machinist working on parts for the aerospace and motor industries. The work was to very close tolerances and in most cases to a very short time scale.

Feb 97 to Aug 97 FACENDA CHICKENS PLC

Farm hand looking after 28,000 breading chickens from day old chicks to egg laying age when they were shipped to other farms. The work involved feeding, weighing and separating them at the required age and in some cases administering medicine when required.

Oct 95  Dec 95 PMS INTERNATIONAL PLC

Assistant to the trade show manager, responsible for the loading and unloading of the trade show equipment as well as making sure the equipment was in good condition and loaded in the correct order.

June 90  Jan 95 IPECO EUROPE LIMITED

A four year engineering apprenticeship in mechanical engineering, which involved one year Off the job training, and three years On the job training. This included, Milling; Turning and Grinding both on manual and computer numerically controlled machines.

Final year project involved an overseas trip to Jordon (self financed) studying their water resources and agricultural irrigation systems, as a case study for an overall project on ground and surface water management in arid countries.